


sink or swim

by emullz



Series: swim is love, swim is life [3]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Swimming, Multi, swimverse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-12
Updated: 2015-08-12
Packaged: 2018-04-14 09:08:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4558878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emullz/pseuds/emullz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>everyone  knew that once you started swimming there was no way out. the team was your family and the pool was your home and the coaches were your really annoying, overly strict parents.</p><p>or the collection of drabbles about the delinquents on a swim team (pt 1: wicken being nerds pt 2: clarke gets in and is cute about it pt 3: idk yet stick around to find out)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. swimming isn't the only thing we're good at (we're also awesome at jenga)

**Author's Note:**

> so basically i have a million ideas for the universe i created where the 100 are members of a high school swim team and everything comes up rosy, so i figured why not get them off of my computer storage and onto the internet!! (basically continuations of the fic: what comes around goes around (just like a flip turn) and maybe it would help if you read that first?? also maybe it wouldn't don't let me tell you what to do) 
> 
> also it might not be clear bc i wanted to make it fluid, but, ch1 raven and wick both went to MIT like they dreamed they would and then life happens

“How the fuck did we end up here?” 

Wick looked at Raven sideways, and he was once again struck by the profile she made. She was just a silhouette, outlined by the light that filtered out through the windows, her hands holding onto the neck of her beer with the casual certainty that came only with someone used to working with their hands. Clarke could draw, Wick thought, but as he looked at Raven’s hands, he realized that she was the artist. Even if she was just a damn mechanic. 

“What do you mean, here?” 

Raven turned her body around to rest her back against the porch railing, and she stared at Wick with the same intensity with which she did everything. 

“I mean, how did we end up in the same exact place we started?” 

Wick smiled, his teeth glinting, and he swept his hair back out of his eyes with one smooth motion. Raven noted with a sick sort of satisfaction that his hands weren’t calloused in the slightest. He’d always been a pretty boy, and the hours spent engineering classes weren’t helping him much. 

“Oh, so you want to know why you’re still swimming for a shitty team and wearing a leg brace and why I still stick around to help you when you flop around on the deck?” 

Raven raised an eyebrow. 

“We’re getting paid. I’m still babysitting whiny swimmers. You’re finally taking classes that actually challenge your intellect. Nerds throw really funny house parties. I don’t see what’s wrong with the place in which we are, right this moment.” 

Raven ducked her head, and although Wick couldn’t see it, he knew she was smiling. 

“That’s not what I mean.” 

Both of them breathed in, Wick slowly, like he didn’t want to make any noise and startle anyone, and Raven sharply, like the more air she took in the easier it would be to say the words she’d let build up in her head for weeks. 

“I don’t know how we ended up dancing around each other like you’re still the student teacher and I’m the asshole who keeps proving you wrong during class. I mean, we’re both exactly where we want to be, but we aren’t there… Jesus, are you actually going to make me say it out loud?” 

Wick laughed. It lasted long enough to Raven to wait for him to be done, decide he was an irredeemable asshole, and then smack him and stalk off. Wick jogged to catch up, grabbing hold of Raven’s arm and stopping her from running away.

 

“I like when you talk about your emotions, Reyes. It makes you seem less like a robot.” 

There was a beat of silence, and neither of them breathed. 

“Robots don’t fall in love.” 

It was soft, and Wick’s heart skipped a beat. 

“What did you just say?”

“I’m not saying it again, and even if I was going to, we aren’t going to make out on the porch while your nerdy friends pause their rousing game of Jenga to oogle us through the window.” 

Wick laughed again, and this time it turned Raven soft, rounding out her hard edges. He tugged on her ponytail with one hand and lifted his beer to his lips with the other. 

“You’d kick all their asses at Jenga.” 

And then she finally laughed, and it drifted out and filled the whole porch, somehow loud and soft at the same time. 

“I’d kick your ass at Jenga.” 

“I’d like to see you try.” 

“Oh, you’re on.”


	2. i'm a bulldog now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the one where clarke gets into college and they celebrate by jumping up and down and eating pancakes (also gifts)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok so idk how the whole college recruiting thing goes (because lets face it that's never gonna happen to me) so i tried my best. all i wanted was to write meaningless fluff and it may not be very good meaningless fluff but it's been a long day and i don't want to edit this any more so
> 
> also side note more minty to come in the next chap!!! yay

Clarke, fingers shaking, pressed the call button on her phone and tried in vain to stop bouncing on the balls of her feet. When Bellamy said from the other line, “hey, Clarke, what’s up?” she nearly lost it.

“Can you come outside?” Clarke could hear Bellamy’s confused intake of breath, could practically imagine the way his eyebrows would contract and he’d get that little wrinkle in his forehead. And then she looked up and saw his face in the window, and he yelled her name and practically sprinted down the stairs. 

He stopped in front of her, still with that bewildered face she loved so much. “Why are you here?” 

Clarke let the grin spread out over her whole face, rising up on her toes so it looked like she was about to take flight. “They offered me a spot. I got in, Bellamy, I got in!”

Clarke barely had time to hear Bellamy’s “oh my God!” before her face was pressed against his chest and he was squeezing. When he finally picked her up and spun her around, she felt like she was going to burst.

Bellamy put Clarke down and held her at arm’s length. “You got in,” he said, with an air of wonderment that Clarke had never heard out of him before. “I mean, you’re incredible and talented and practically a genius, but-“

“I’m going to swim for Harvard,” Clarke said, relishing the taste of the word in her mouth. “I have to hate you now.” 

“It was good while it lasted,” Bellamy said, trying and failing to look like he was mourning. “I’m a bulldog now, and you’re a- what are you again?” 

“I don’t even know!” When they both laughed, Clarke out of sheer exhilaration and Bellamy because the look on her face was so adorable he couldn’t help himself, people all over the quad stared. Neither of them noticed. 

“How did everyone at home take it?” Bellamy asked. “Your mom, Octavia, Monty and Jasper-“ 

“I didn’t tell any of them,” Clarke admitted, once again breathless. “The envelope was in the mailbox, and I grabbed it, and I opened it and I drove here.” 

“Do you wanna call them?”

Clarke grinned. “Yeah. But first…” 

And then her lips were on his and her hand was threaded through his hair and Bellamy sort of forgot what he’d just said. 

\- -

When Octavia finally heard the news (because of course they called her first), there was a lot of yelling and general anger at the fact that Clarke had driven to see Bellamy without her, and then a demand that they both drive home together to have lunch with her and celebrate “the proper way.” When Clarke and Bellamy pulled up to the diner Octavia had specified, they both realized that the proper way to celebrate, in Octavia’s mind, was jumping up and down.

They also discovered that she had invited the entire swim team. Well, except Raven and Miller, who hadn’t skipped class to come hang out with high schoolers at a small town diner like a certain Blake. 

It was just like Bellamy remembered, Jasper ordering the most exotic thing on the menu and then declaring it inedible while Octavia snuck bites off of his plate, Harper and Monroe breaking out into song when a part of the conversation reminded them of a certain lyric, and Clarke, sitting at the head of the table, beaming at them like a proud parent. 

“Dorms aren’t that bad, but they’re small,” Monty told Clarke. He then winked and added, “I know cause I helped Miller move into his.” 

“Damn, Green,” Clarke responded, laughing. Her eyes lit up, and Bellamy couldn’t help but squeeze her hand under the table. 

“I’ve already been sexiled twice this semester,” Bellamy said ruefully. “They don’t joke about the sock on the door.” Monty blushed. 

“Damn, Green!” Clarke crowed, as Bellamy patted him on the back. Monty stuffed a bite of waffles into his mouth in lieu of a response. 

\- -

At the end of the meal, when Bellamy, Clarke, and Octavia were sitting on the hood of his truck and picking through the team’s leftovers, like they used to after Saturday practices, Bellamy cleared his throat and reached into the glove compartment through the window. “I got you something,” he said, his voice gruff. 

“How could you have possibly gotten me anything if you haven’t been out of my sight since I told you?” Clarke asked, her eyes narrowing. “You better not have gotten me something stupid like a generic gift card for dorm supplies. Or a teddy bear. If you got me a teddy bear, we’re breaking up-“ 

Bellamy held out a sweatshirt with the Harvard crest emblazoned on the front. “I got this for you as soon as you applied.” 

“You didn’t know I was going to get in,” Clarke said, pressing the fabric of the sweatshirt to her nose and breathing in. “Oh my God, it smells like a bookstore.” 

“I know you, Clarke. How on earth could they not take you?” Bellamy watched Clarke’s face melt with a certain satisfaction. 

“And if you didn’t get in, we could’ve burned it together,” Octavia piped in with a smug look on her face. Clarke reached over and gave her a hug. 

“Why is it that my little sister is always ruining our very nice moments?” Bellamy asked as Clarke pulled the shirt over her head. 

This time, when Clarke kissed him, he was ready. “Octavia, we’ll meet you back home,” he said after they’d broken apart. 

“You disgust me,” Octavia called over her shoulder, having already put her key in the ignition of her beat up Volvo. 

“You love us,” Clarke responded before Bellamy pulled her in for another kiss, this time sliding his hand under the hem of her sweatshirt. 

“I got in,” she said once more against his lips. “How awesome is that?” Bellamy just smiled in response.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading and i hope you enjoyed it!!! pls leave suggestions and ideas and constructive criticism in the comments over what aspect of the swimverse you want to see next, or whether or not you thought this was ok, or anything really. tell me what you had for lunch, idc.
> 
> sorry for any grammar/editing mistakes i didn't revise this bc i'm lazy

**Author's Note:**

> ok so that happened. hmu on the media (emullz (the personal blog) on both ff.net and tumblr, officialbellarketrash on tumblr if you're looking for just a 100 and fanfic kinda blog) 
> 
> and comment with any suggestions, ideas you have, moments you wanna see, and i really hoped you liked it!!!


End file.
